Booher: Miller enjoying Drury's historic run

Kary BOOHER Kary Booher. Nathan Papes/News-Leader

Perhaps the best office view in the Ozarks is the one that belongs to a former Parkview High School/Drury University basketball standout, who can simply look to his left through a pane of glass and there, down a tunnel that leads out to the O'Reilly Family Event Center, is history in the making.

History being the Drury Panthers.

"I get a little distracted come 3 p.m. in the winter," Matt Miller said this week, referring to practice time. "It's a good thing."

The wonderful thing about Drury's crazy run to the NCAA Division II national championship game is that there is no shortage of great stories, of neat personalities and what not as the calendar inches ever closer to Sunday and Atlanta.

So naturally I couldn't help but smile Tuesday when the ink truck wheeled into the newspaper's parking lot. Drury, like its suffocating defense, has just about worn us out.

But, as you've read this season, this is a group worthy of attention throughout the Ozarks. Yet to understand what this team and this season truly mean at Drury, it's best not to have the sports columnist tell you but rather allow one of the school's stars do the talking today.

Well, Miller.

He's the perfect choice to explain this. Grew up attending Drury games at old Weiser Gym. Could've gone to play for then-coach Steve Alford at then-Southwest Missouri State but chose Drury and instead became a star here, setting the career and single-season 3-point records until You Know Who came along.

And now he's 34, and 11 years removed from the graduation stage and now oversees the athletic department. But down that hall is a banner in his name hanging from the rafters, and opposite the other one that every other team has been chasing here.

"That's all I've heard about since the time I was a little kid was the '79 championship team," Miller said of Drury's NAIA title team. "Those guys were my heroes. It just makes me so happy that now we've got the opportunity to have a whole generation of new kids that are going to hear the stories of Alex Hall and Brandon Lockhart, Teddy (Simniok) and Cameron (Adams), and it couldn't be a better group of guys."

At Drury, you can say it's a place that is Division II in name only: A $13.5 million arena constructed in 2010; an athletic department fully funded, with 10 scholarships each for men's and women's basketball and two travel vans for each - unheard of in some places; and don't forget that alum Larry O'Reilly recently tossed in a cool million.

So you can see why Miller is ecstatic. He takes no credit but is just happy for Drury.

"I can't remember which record it was - because there's so many he's broken this year - but I texted Alex back in mid-season and said, 'Hey, I hope you break every single one of them,'" Miller said. "It's good for Drury, the university needs it right now and this run is more powerful than just the basketball. This has been a unifying factor on campus. It's transcended sports and the athletic department."

Ok, he went on some more.

"You see pictures of the lines of students that are waiting in line to hop on the bus to go take part in this thing," Miller added, "it's creating memories for our students and our players that are going to last a lifetime."

Yeah, what he said.

Stiles and Drury?

An emailer asked late Tuesday night, after we broke the story about Lady Bears legend Jackie Stiles interviewing for the Drury women's coaching job, if both sides were serious or cleverly trying to drum up support.

I give Stiles and Drury the benefit of the doubt.

I know people have their agendas. But the Drury job is among the best in D-II, and the school wouldn't do a "token" interview by flying in a candidate from Los Angeles. It has to get this right.

Stiles' reputation here would be dented somewhat if it came to light that she was using the interview as leverage to land on Missouri State's new, yet-to-be announced staff.

But she's an assistant in D-I already and needs to be seen as serious now for potential head-coaching jobs later.

Lady Bears search

Speaking of the Lady Bears coaching search, the door is always open for Missouri State athletic director Kyle Moats to offer an update. I'm guilty sometimes of having tunnel-vision on a project, so I can see why Moats would stiff-arm interview requests as he finds a new coach.

But, given that declining season-ticket revenue was cited as a big reason why Nyla Milleson was canned, I would think an A.D. would be eager to communicate with past and future season-ticket holders through the media, if only to say the number of applicants, the number of interviews and how well it's going.

We'd appreciate knowing the names, but we understand how the game works and why Moats can't reveal them.

Besides, it's our job to find those names.

Go Shockers

As a convert to the Missouri Valley Conference, you bet I'm pulling for the Shockers in the Final Four this weekend. Sorry.

Kary Booher, Sunday Sports Editor of the News-Leader, can be reached at 836-1180 or by email at kbooher@news-leader.com.